Eureka! 'RuPaul's Drag Race' brings back East Tennessee contestant

Celebrity drag queen RuPaul made good on a promise to bring back an East Tennessee performer who had to leave a VH1 reality show because of injury.

Last year, Eureka O’Hara – aka Johnson City’s David Huggard – tore his ACL during filming of a segment of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” and Huggard’s injury was so bad, he had to be withdrawn from the competition.

In a dramatic ending to the season’s fifth episode, RuPaul announced that Eureka had to leave because “you need time to heal” – the show's first-ever medical expulsion of a contestant. But then the host extended an offer to Huggard to come back for a future season.

Sure enough, Eureka is the first contestant revealed on the premiere episode of the show’s new season, which debuts at 8 p.m. Thursday on VH1. At the beginning of the debut, Huggard enters the show’s work room, announcing, “Like a phoenix from the ashes, Eureka is back!”

Huggard then kisses the floor and later notes that on his first season on the show, “I didn’t get to really bring my all, so now I got something to prove.”

Afterward, the other 13 contestants (all “Drag Race” newcomers) enter the work room one at a time, including Nashville performer Kameron Michaels (a self-proclaimed “muscle queen”) and a performer who goes by the stage name “Miz Cracker” because, “I’m thin, I’m white, and I’m very salty.”

In a confessional side interview after all of the drag queens are introduced, Huggard says, “You might think that I’m less nervous because I’ve been here, but you’re wrong. I’m scared to (expletive) death because if I don’t fight through every single day, they’re not gonna let me last.”

Christina Aguilera will be a celebrity judge on the debut episode of the show, now in its 10th season. Future judges include Shania Twain and Kate Upton.